I have far less experience than the majority of folks here growing lemons, but I do have a meyer in gritty mix, so I'll add my $0.02. I think the initial decline of the plant was due to under watering and the most recent leaf curling is also a symptom of under watering. I've found it darn near impossible to overwater my Meyer lemon when it's planted in gritty mix. It sits under a 150 watt HPS lamp during the winter and I water it every 4 days until I see water in the saucer. Since it's so heavy and I don't care to move it, I even let the water sit in the tray. The gritty mix is very forgiving for people who have a heavy hand on the watering can.

Carolyn: Belated congratulations! I have been gradually catching up on RP threads after being off-line for a while. I use SYKM a lot. I had to contact them about not getting the newsletter and was impressed by the speedy personal response from Lucinda. We had quite a pleasant discussion too!

I find that the British and Australian books listed are usually in my library system but I can get an early request in for the US publications which are "on order"! It is such a useful website, isn't it?

My very first cats were indoor pets, my apartment companions. Happy as clams, they lived for many happy, active years. Later on, we moved into a more rural environment and we opted for a cat door and an indoor/outdoor life for our cats. They all appeared to be very happy, actually spending most of their time inside whenever we were home. They loved the outdoors, no question. And so began years of testing for and treating numerous diseases, plus tapeworms, hookworms, roundworms, heartworms, fleas, ticks, cat scratch illness, and ringworm (fungus). Makes me a little ill when I think of it. Gosh, all of the visitors, young and old, that I exposed to these issues. I developed ringworm on two occasions, and had a long, debilitating bout of cat scratch illness on another. This was before the days of the powerful chemical treatments we now shower our outdoor pets with to prevent a few of those infestations so we had to fight flea infestations on the cats and in the home......even more exposure to chemicals. But if cats are eating birds and rodents (and who knows what else), they WILL end up with an assortment of internal parasites as well as other stuff that can infect their owners. You cannot vaccinate against everything. Be mindful, too, that humans can host some of these internal worms.